Petty behavior at the White House

During this recent government shutdown, the White House updated their voicemail message to state: “Thank you for calling the White House,” the recorded voice said. “Unfortunately, we cannot answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate...”

Why is it that most pronouncements from this White House sound like they were written by a fourth-grader? No insult intended to fourth-graders.

Last I knew, the White House belongs to the citizens of the United States. This low and petty behavior should be beneath the Office of the President.

Janet Andrew

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(30) comments

Im not sure how any democrat can at all can with a straight face continually attack Trump for the very thing they themselves continually do. Petty? Start by looking in the mirror before you start up with the hypocritical attacks. Perhaps you will keep your mouths shut once and a while.

Right Jeremy...how's word that the economy has already under performing with much slower growth in the 4th quarter treating you? Or remind me how values mattered when republicans attack democrats but when a real life adult film star is paid off for the presidents 3rd openly aired affair (at least) it's given the usual republican mulligan, even from the religious hypocrites. We heard you wingers cry about protests being a bad thing when the left and the middle did it all last year, but tea party town halls were just the cup of tea when you loved them. We're were told that Hillary lied but your Orange moron can't even get through his 4 hour work day (BIGLY!) without uttering closer to 5 verifiable lies or distortions a day (even you might have trouble making up that many things a day JM!).

You're so awash in hypocrisy you want to pretend the rest of us are as weak minded and addled as you. We're not. We don't buy the fake news. We don't excuse the awful Trump behavior - and it's so bad that we don't have to make a thing up.

Remind me how you would have howled if Clinton had tried to fire several layers of the investigators into every corner of his life. They came up with nothing criminal...yet it looks like you're already knee deep in owning a president that might be guilty of a trifecta (that means three) of crimes: obstruction of justice, money laundering with the Russians, and channelling campaign funds to pay off p. stars ... also illegal (and Bannon admitted there were many more btw). Given that he used his foundation to pay off legal debts in past (also illegal and also under investigation in NYC) there's a good chance he did the same in paying off his latest lover(s).

And Mueller hasn't even interviewed Trump yet...how long do you think it will take for a seasoned and respected specialist in exactly these types of far ranging criminal conspiracies to nail Trump with a lie? Maybe Trumps brags that he's in bigly health at 6'3" and 239 lbs? Or when he tells Mueller that the p. star was begging him to sleep with her or when he says he did it because she reminded him so much of his daughter (one's actually true Jeremy). Considering he's deposed all of the junior dumbbells, you know he's got what he needs on biggest dummy of them all. Won't take long!

Good luck pretending you're on the high ground (and just for effect...Remember your party and president's support for pedophile Roy Moore). Let me know how that works out for you.

I find it humorous how people you like (example, hillary and bill) are innocent untill proven guilty yet at the same time people you don't care for , Trump, are all guilty as sin off of headlines and rumors. And you call me an ignorant and hypocrytacle? How's that work? This is just ONE OF MANY, MANY examples!

If the petty main stream media could be counted on to report the facts, rather than slant them with their hatred of all things Trump, them maybe the WH wouldn't have to put such messages on the phone. With the Praetorian Guard media suffering from a bad case of Trump derangement syndrome, the President is forced to use any way possible to get his message out.

You mean like lies that's it's the democrats fault that there was a shutdown when the repubs & wingers control both houses and the presidency? Remember when the right like to pretend it was obamas fault that the government shutdown yet republicans in the majority voted for it then too?

What's funnier? That the staff kept baby Trump from actually participating in the shutdown crisis for fear he'd make it even worse OR that in 2013 when Repubs shut the govt done again Trump said "“Well, if you say who gets fired it always has to be the top,” Trump said. “Problems start from the top and they have to get solved from the top and the president’s the leader. And he’s got to get everybody in a room and he’s got to lead...when they talk about the government shutdown, they’re going to be talking about the president of the United States, who the president was at that time.”

Don't blame us because your party can't lead and you elected a moron. The same moron who days earlier promised he'd sign the very deal he was offered at a bipartisan meeting and that's he'd take the heat for it (and one with everything he asked for) and then turned around and pretend he'd never said it days...you know schizophrenia!

So lie all day and bask in the fake news...but you guys voted for proven liar, tax cheat, litigious bully, reality tv huckster, multiple affair, serial sexual assaulter, racist, 4 hour a day couch potato who gets most of his news from fox and friends as he gorges on Mcdonalds....

You elected stupid - so now it's your stupid. You think re-ubs suffered with the nixon legacy forever...guess who's going to own Trump Republicans forever?!?!

Here's one for the evangelicals...so which moral travesty is worse and harder to block out by screaming LA-LA-LA in your own head? That Trump has been revealed to have had his 3rd affair, that is was with a p.star or that you guys sold your morals to the devil by voting for a guy you knew exactly about so you you're evangelicals in name only?

Gee Fake News...so a photo op of two men standing next to each other at an official congressional for the congressional black caucus in 2005 gets your panties in a knot (or fired up alternatively). But current news from your orange disaster doesn't do a thing for you...?

I guess if Obama was have sex with a adult film star, or just paying her off in the photo it would be the usual old ho-hum for you right? If we had a photo of Obama actively campaigning for, raising funds for and endorsing a known pedophile for congress would you just yawn and move on too? how about if we showed Obama, and the entire family, actively working with the Russians, or russian active interference and hacking of election systems, and money laundering with them...does that get any rise out of you...or only because he's a democrat?

Oh well...old photos of Obama with LF is viagra to you Johnny...but real crimes & conspiracy are like watching PBS Antiques Roadshow to you. I wanted to show you the pictures of Trump trying to fire yet another investigator - it's called an act of criminal obstruction (a definite no-no for a president) but I guess you're just too horned up for pictures of Obama that mean nothing. (by the way - the fake news you say covered this up - is your own FOX NEWS dingbat)!

I really love when you do this Fake News. It shows your hypocrisy all day long...given everything that your president is under active FBI investigation for, and daily lies, misinformation and plain old idiocy, and all you can come up with to answer is a Farrakhan Obama photo at a public event from 13 years ago...? What did you think...you found the holy grail? Did you think it showed them with a memo shown in their hands talking about "killing whitey" or something? AH-HA-HA-HA. You must be the biggest dolt ever here (now that dietz is gone or in hiding). OH MY - THEY WERE IN THE SAME ROOM WITH HUNDREDS OF OTHERS TWO FULL YEARS BEFORE RUNNING FOR OFFICE!!! AAAIEEEEEE!!!

Yup that's pretty much it. Worse yet is how the media gets people to fall for some of this stuff. Like today, of coarse I only read the headline, an article claims eating sandwiches causes global warming. Now it won't be very long and clay, matt and bob are going to try convincing us that this is fact.

It is obvious many have not had occasion to cal the White House much, the message can change daily depending on what is going on. I have heard some pretty petty messages from the White House switch board over the years I worked in DC and at the Pentagon. Under both Democrats as well as Republicans. The President has nothing to do with what gets said on the answering service, that is up to the Chief of Staff or one of their aids and they have a lot of flexibility to pretty much put anything on there they want.

What is really petty is the continued pecking by some in the public of every single little thing that happens. I would be more inclined to say the ones sounding like 4th graders are those in the public that are still mad and hurt that he was elected!

The "some in public" are millions of concerned citizens from every quarter who are addressing Trump's and his administration's "every single little thing that happens". Few are still disappointed with the results of the election. The majority of the citizens of this country are concerned with what has happened AFTER the election.

Still making it up eh Donnie Jackson? you know, like making up lies such as the fox reporter recanting her story of Gianforte assaulting that reporter doing nothing more than asking a question. You know...lies?

Yep, DonJack reminding people that you're the guy that came here multiple times EVEN AFTER GIANFORTE admitting assaulting the reporter to claim he didn't actually assault him by telling us lies about a recanted Fox reporter story.

Honesty is a currency...even in an anonymous forum you can be held accountable for being bankrupt and making up lies, and re-telling them even if pretending (like you did and have) to be some sort of gilded insider with prescient insight and information, that are proven to be lies.

Yes, I am that guy that doesn't let lying dogs lie...or respect them or their opinions in the slightest. I'd suggest either being factual and informed, not lying or taking your medicine.

Cahill, you are welcome to say anything you like about me, I am not accountable to you, you and you have no effect or bearing on my life and comments, you are simple another bump that is not even all that irritating. Virtually every single one of your messages is full of childish petty comments, the majority of people actually ignore your rhetoric.

Others on here and I disagree with each other on our positions, but we still have conversations, you one the other hand resort to name calling and such.

Go away Cahill and let the grown ups talk, at least we for the most part can have a conversation, you on the other hand are simply a mouth blowing in the wind.

Also, I never said Gianforte didn't do it, I said, let the court decide what happened and it did, despite that, he is still one of our representatives. he admitted what he did and the court handed down his punishment. In the whole scope of things what you or I rambled about means and meant nothing.

As far as lies, you are a master of the skill, we could all take a lesson from you.

I agree with this letter writer. The WH message was childish and petty. I think it also reflects the personality of the President. And while I doubt that he personally directed anyone to change the message, it is clear that WH staff know how insecure and childish Mr. Trump is. They do things like this to please him, just like that cabinet meeting several weeks back where everyone (including Zinke) took a turn praising Mr. Trump and saying what a glorious honor is was to be able to serve him. Trump's ego is so fragile that it demands constant approval and stroking. His staff gets the message.

BB. Did you see the story that the WH staff is in a panic know how uniformed and readily able Trump is to put his foot in his mouth and how often he lies openly to the public...They are sure he'll say something BIGLY and get caught immediately in that lie...especially with regards to money laundering and obstruction of justice.

It'd be next up w Pence...a man who can't be alone with a woman at lunch and who calls his wife MOTHER. Sure that's normal. He may be complicit too. That might be the only way Paul Ryan ever gets to be president.

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